


The Savage Land

by CharityLambkin



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Hulk, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Hulk, Science Bros, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharityLambkin/pseuds/CharityLambkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Abomination lures Hulk into battle and Tony witnesses the Hulk at his strongest.  But now he can't see Bruce in the same way.  Bruce doesn't mind.  He's the monster after all.  But that doesn't seem quite right to Tony, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kweandee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kweandee/gifts).



> "Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome." --Margaret Atwood

 The air was hot and dense and dank in the cave, thick with the smell of blood.  The blood, at least, wasn’t all Tony’s but he was thirsty and sick with the deep, relentless pain in his leg.  His vision was foggy, but he watched as the monster who abducted him dragged the carcass of a leopard into the mouth of the cave. The animal was already dead, and a thick red stripe painted the path behind him.

Tony scrambled backward as much as his broken body would allow, but that wasn’t much, and all that pain earned him no more than a disinterested backwards glance before the Abomination tore into his meal.  He turned away as Blonsky ripped open the predator’s belly and its organs spilled out, slimy with rich crimson blood.  But he couldn’t tune out the tearing, slurping sounds of the monster devouring the animal.  Tony turned to vomit when the smell of acid and half-digested stomach contents wafted over, but he was so dehydrated that he couldn’t even bring up bile.

Blonsky laughed, deep and hoarse.

“Hungry?” he asked.  Tony closed his eyes.  He hadn’t eaten at all since…however long he’d been here, but he was burning hot all over and the throbbing pain chased away any appetite he could have.  Besides, despite Tony’s exotic tastes, he really didn’t think leopard á la sashimi was going to be on the menu anytime soon.

But Blonsky just snorted at his silence, ripped off a haunch of leopard between two huge talons and tossed it towards Tony.  Tony let it land a few feet away with a wet plop.  He glanced at it and wanted to vomit again because the ripped muscle and bone looked an awful lot like the leg he was also trying to avoid looking at.  It was his right leg, busted open with a compound fracture when Blonsky had tossed him onto the hard rock floor of the cave.  He had done his best to wrap it up with his shirt, but he had passed out twice already and it had long soaked through with blood.  Almost more than a drink of water, he wished he had paid more attention when Hawkeye was trying to teach him about field dressings. 

The funny thing was, he hadn’t bled out, which meant that by some kind of luck the break hadn’t compromised any major blood vessels.  His ribs were pretty sore, too, and there was a sharp, sick pain deep in his middle when he breathed, but that wasn’t too far from normal.   Hairline fractures and a slightly misaligned arc reactor, he guessed.  But he’d been here for days with Blonsky, and the Abomination had done nothing but sit at the mouth of the cave, waiting.

Today had been the first time that Blonsky risked leaving Tony alone, probably thinking he was too weak and hurt to make a break for it.  He was right.  Tony hadn’t even been conscious enough to realize he was gone until the moments before he heard thunderous footsteps on the jungle floor.

In his fever, he had opened his eyes and expected to see green.  There was the momentary bliss of ignorance before his eyes focuses on a far more grotesque form, trailing blood in its wake. 

“Hey,” Blonsky’s rough voice pulled Tony back to the present.

He was hot and cold.  And thirsty.

“You still alive?”  Tony didn’t open his eyes.  He heard bone crack as Blonsky sucked the marrow dry.  “Well, don’t need you to be alive,” Blonsky mused.  “Banner will come for a dead body same as a live one.  He’s sentimental like that.”

“Fuck you,” Tony bit out.  It sounded weak .  It might have been the first thing he’d said in days.

Blonsky paused and looked hard at Tony. “Well he better hurry if that’s what you want.  I don’t think he’d _fuck_ a dead guy, but some people are sick like that.”

He laughed long and hard at his own joke.  So Tony laid his aching head down on a rock to watch the cave lighten with the rising sun.

****

When Tony next opened his eyes the sun was as bright as it would ever get under the Amazonian canopy.  His mouth felt like it was full of sand, and it took all his energy to force the humid air in and out of his lungs. 

But he was alone.

That realization triggered a shock of adrenaline Tony didn’t know he had left.  He sat up, stifling a groan, and surveyed the little cave.  He could get up to one knee with his injured leg stuck straight out, though he couldn’t keep back a little moan at the pain. He stayed like that for a moment, panting through the damp air and the waves of nausea.  Finally, with a huge heave upwards, he got all of his weight onto his good side and crawled up the cave wall to his feet.

His vision swam and started to go dark around the edges, but he bent over as much as he could and sucked down deep breaths, counting to five just like Bruce taught him.

The thought of that name lit up the last of his hope.  Hope he was going to need if he was going to try to hike his way out of a pathless jungle on a broken leg. 

First, he had to get clear from that cave and find somewhere to hide.  He knew Hulk could track by smell like a goddam bloodhound, so he had to assume Abomination could do the same.  But it was a jungle.  There had to be water around there something—water with anacondas and leeches and leopards and he really didn’t want to think about that—but it might throw the scent off.

He grit his teeth as he hopped from rock to rock along the jagged floor of the cave, guiding himself out along the wall.  He was going to have to find something sturdy to splint his leg, too, if he intended on covering any ground. 

Sweat dripped down his bare back before he even reached the mouth of the cave.  He was panting hard, and he was starting to get tunnel vision.  But he could see a small stretch of low ferns and a few fallen, mossed-over trunks before the tree line.  He crouched as much as he could against a log as he looked around.  There was nothing but silence and the scattered bones of the leopard.  Not a single jungle bird was signing.

Tony hobbled his way cautiously away from the cave, one agonizing step at a time.  Even if he managed to only get something sturdy to splint his leg, this would be worth it.  He made his way to one of the fallen trees when the earth beneath him shuddered with a bass rumble.

He paused, every sense on alert as adrenaline pushed the pain aside.  A heartbeat later, there was another shuddering of the earth, strong enough this time to send Tony tumbling into the ferns with a bitten-off scream.

But he was glad he was down because the Abomination burst through the tree line, spines bristling and spewing plumes of bloody mist on every exhale.  He stopped, every muscle tense, and scanned the clearing and the mouth of the cave.  Tony stayed as still as his trembling body could as the Abomination’s gaze passed over the fern bed once, then twice again. 

He wasn’t looking for Tony, he realized just as he heard a familiar howl and his heart soared.  The Hulk came running through the jungle on three limbs, carrying a tree like a baseball bat in his hand.  He charged at Blonsky, and all Tony could do was curl up as tight as he could and hope he didn’t get trampled.

The wood of the tree trunk splintered with a tremendous crack, and the split end ricocheted into the forest.  Tony lifted his head enough to see the Abomination reeling from the blow and staggering back to the mouth of the cave.  He turned his head to split out a gob of blood.

Blonsky laughed through red teeth.  “You want him?  I’ll crush his skull…”

Blonsky turned his to search the little cave and Tony took his chance to drag himself to his feet once more.  The confusion—followed by extreme relief—on Hulk’s face when he popped out of the foliage almost brought Tony to tears.  He was up to his waist in fern fronds, so Hulk couldn’t see how bad off he was quit yet.

And then Blonsky’s roar interrupted their reunion and Hulk looked over Tony’s head, prompting him to pivot around as much as he could to look.  The Abomination drew himself up to his full height, every spike on end and scaly tendons straining as he roared again.  Tony’s good leg felt like jelly, but on instinct, he moved backwards, away from the monster.  His knees buckled, but still he pushed back sliding on his ass until he felt something solid and warm at his back.  He scrabbled backwards with his hands, grabbing for the Hulk’s calf out of pure fear.

And then he looked up into the Hulk’s face.  The green giant was looking down in concern for Tony, though his posture was still on the defensive.  But there was no fear in the Hulk’s eyes.  The ground began to shudder as the Abomination charged again, but the Hulk looked up quite calmly, then picked up Tony as carefully as he could and placed him in the shelter of a tree behind him.

He gave Tony one last assuring look before turning to face the Abomination’s charge.  He raised a fist, but the green giant met it with an open palm.  He grabbed the Abomination’s fist and used the forward momentum to swing him around, away from Tony, and into the base of an ancient tree.  Some of the spines on his back cracked and hung in a strange angle as he shook the blow off.  But Hulk was on him before he could recover.  He wrapped one huge hand around the Abomination’s throat and slammed him up against the base of another tree.  Abomination took a swing that connected with Hulk’s ear, but it was from a strange angle and it made Hulk cringe, but not lose his grip.  Blonsky started to claw at Hulk’s bare arms and shoulders, but the attempts were useless as Hulk’s grip just strengthened.

Suddenly, Hulk seemed to get bored with Blonsky.  He used his grip on his throat to throw Blonsky flat on his back as he simultaneously drove his heel down on his solar plexus.  Blonsky’s eyes went wide and his mouth opened for breath that his spasming diaphragm wouldn’t allow him to have.

Even from his protective spot among the tree roots, Tony could see the murderous anger in the gamma green eyes.  Hulk glowed from righteous rage, and Tony realized that this was the first time he ever saw the Hulk just have _enough_.

Hulk dug his foot deeper into Blonsky’s chest, and he couldn’t even scream to cover the crunch of shattering bone.  The Abomination reached up with one hand in a feeble attempt to dislodge Hulk, but Hulk grabbed his hand, braced his other foot on Blonsky’s shoulder, and ripped it from the socket.

Tony ducked down to vomit, and Blonsky still didn’t scream, but he couldn’t stop from hearing the Hulk efficiently tear him limb-from-limb, twisting the skull off his spine last.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce keeps Tony safe while the rest of the team arranges transportation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.” –John Le Carré

“Tony?” He heard his name being called down a long tunnel.  “Tony…can you hear me?”

He tried to answer but it came out as “...hngg…”

There was a soft, relieved chuckle.  “That’s a good start.  How about opening your eyes?”

He could, and the jungle canopy came into view above him after a few blinks.  His face was wet with a light misting rain, but the moisture on his lips felt heavenly and he licked them dry.

“I have water,” Bruce’s soft voice said by his side.

His head was lifted, and warm but blessedly clean water trickled onto his bleeding lips.  He lapped at it as best he could, and moaned when it was taken away.

“Shhh,” Bruce soothed.  “Let it settle and maybe you’ll wake up enough to get more in your mouth than on the ground.”

The ground…but it didn’t feel like he was lying on the ground.  Tony forced his brain to wake up enough to see his surroundings.  He was lying on a bed of fern fronds, pretty much where he remembered passing out after watching the Hulk tear the Abomination to shreds.

Sure enough, he turned his head too far and there was a pile of greasy meat and bones that once was Emil Blonsky, just a few meters from where he lay.  His stomach roiled at the sight and Bruce had to help him turn over a bit so he could throw up the mouthful of water he had just swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said with a guilty wince.  “When I woke up…I couldn’t move him and I couldn’t move you without hurting you more.”  He wiped a hand across his face.  It was clean, but Tony could see his elbows and biceps still streaked with dirt and blood, though the misty rain was helping a little bit.

Awareness was coming back too slowly.  “’M I drugged?” he asked hesitantly.

Bruce winced again.  “Yeah.  Morphine.  My fault.” He held up a bag and Tony realized it was the cross-body backpack with an expandable strap that they were just teaching Hulk how to tolerate.  “I shot you up with some antibiotics, too, because you’re burning up.  I got a splint on your leg, but that’s going to need an orthopedic surgeon to set it properly.  And your arms, too.”

Tony looked down to see his leg completely wrapped up and braced.  Both forearms were similarly splinted, though Bruce had left his wrists their full range of motion.  “I didn’t know they were broken.”

“Not badly, and you probably didn’t notice with all the other injuries you have.  Your ribs are pretty messed up, too, but I got those wrapped up as well I as I could.”

It was barely registering in his foggy mind that Bruce was naked except for the pair of stretchy boxer briefs he wore for Hulk modesty emergencies. 

“You brought all that, but no clothes?”

“You’re wearing them, Tony,” Bruce laughed.  “You need them more right now.  But listen, how do you feel about that cave over there?  Think you could go back in?”

Tony shuddered a little, just remembering the monster standing guard at the entrance.  But nothing bad had happened in the cave itself, and it was only a little indentation in the rock anyway.  “I could.”

Bruce’s eyes looked immensely relieved.  “Good because we need to wait for an extraction team, and they’re not going to find us by sundown.”

“I thought you were the extraction team?”

“No.  I’m search and rescue.  I’ll explain later.”

With a great deal of teamwork, they got Tony to his feet—well, foot—with most of his weight against Bruce’s side.  Bruce hadn’t been idle while Tony slept, and the path back to the cave was free of debris and the leopard bones were nowhere to be seen.  Still, Tony had to pause several times before Bruce could lower him down to a space blanket spread on a clear piece of the dry cave floor.  Tony tried to stretch out his injured leg, but it was stiff and sore and the cave was spinning around him.  Bruce made several trips back out to the forest to gather large armfuls of the broken ferns, which he bundled into cushions for Tony’s hips and legs.

“I wouldn’t put your head on this for a pillow, though,” Bruce warned.   Instead, he sat on the edge of the blanket and pulled Tony’s head and shoulders into his lap.  “How’s the pain?” he asked distantly.

“So much better than it was,” Tony said.  It wasn’t an answer, but it was the truth.

Bruce fed him more water, which stayed down this time, and that really seemed to please him.  But, the very best thing of all, Bruce took a package of baby wipes from out of the bottom of his bag and began to gently clean the dirt and sweat and blood off Tony’s face.  They weren’t just any wet wipes, either.  They were the Good Night ones that had real lavender oil and the contrast between that soft touch and familiar scent and the horror he saw when he closed his eyes made tears bubble down Tony’s cheeks.  But those were wiped away, too, without much consequence, before Bruce moved down to his chest and shoulders.

“It’s amazing what I can fit in that bag,” Bruce said.

“But no radio, huh?”

“No need for a radio.  Has a tracker, though.  The team has our location. Just, between the tree canopy and the local wildlife, it’s not safe to fly here at night.”

A desperate thought occurred to Tony.  “Where are we, Bruce?”

He expected to hear Columbia or Brazil.  He did not expect Bruce to say, “Antarctica.  The Savage Land.”  Bruce swallowed thickly, and he balled up the dirty cloth in his hand before taking a new one out of the package.  “That’s why it took so long to find you.  He went into the jungle, and all our scanning equipment went to hell.”

“All the magnetic fields.”

“Yeah, and alien biosignatures. And the tree canopy made a visual scan ridiculous.  We were never going to find you unless we went after you on foot.”  Bruce looked away, out into the jungle.  “And anyone else would have slowed the Hulk down.”  He looked back down at Tony and tried to smile but it was forced and tired.  “But I can’t get you out the same way I came in so we’re calling your five-star medical quinjet for a pickup.”

Bruce liked doing that.  He liked constantly reassuring Tony that help was coming and they weren’t alone.

The light slowly faded.  Far in the distance, a predator screamed in defeat.

“Leopard,” Tony said at the same time as Bruce said, “Pterodactyl.”

“Pterodactyl?” Tony said.  “Have you been dipping into the morphine because I’m gonna need that really soon.”

Bruce laughed, but he leaned over to get one of the little pre-loaded syringes.  He tipped Tony’s head to the side and didn’t even warn him before swabbing his neck and pushing the little needle through.  The brief pain was worth the warm flush of relief that followed seconds later.  He sighed, and he knew Bruce felt him settle heavier in his lap.

“It _was_ a pterodactyl.  They’re going home to roost for the night.  You know, I had to fight two large carnivorous dinosaurs to get to you.   I know a pterodactyl when I hear one.”

Tony laughed, but it turned into a yawn.

“Drink some more, if you can, and you should sleep,” Bruce said.  “Rest as much as you can for tomorrow.”

Tony took him up on the offer of more water, then gratefully tucked into Bruce’s side and slept.

****

Deep in the night, Tony woke drenched in sweat.  His feet were ice cold, but his chest felt like it was on fire.  Even his eyes felt so hot they might pop at any moment.

Bruce was gone, and he had left Tony’s head pillowed on the folded up empty bag.  Tony turned his pounding head to see a torrential storm outside the entrance to the cave.  And there, sitting with his bony knees pulled up to his chest, was Blonsky standing guard.

Tony couldn’t help the scream that rose in his throat.  “No!” he screeched.  “No no no! I’m not going to die in a fucking cave!”

And there were broad hands holding him.  “Shh, Tony, you’re not going to die here.  No one’s going to die here.”

But all Tony could see was the sick slither of disemboweled leopard organs and taste blood in the air and watch as the sinews that connected arm to shoulder ripped and tore.

“Someone already did,” Tony blurted out before he could think to stop himself.

Bruce went very still, and the hands went away all at once.  Tony blinked to clear his eyes, but he couldn’t miss the way Bruce’s hands were shaking.  A bright fear that he might be losing control—might turn into the Hulk and tear him apart—struck Tony like lightning on a clear summer day.

And Bruce could smell it on him, the sharp spark of adrenaline-fueled fear.  He looked at Tony in dismay.

“You’re right, Tony.  I promised you a long time ago that I was going to protect you from the monsters and well…I’m not doing a very good job.”  He ran a hand through his hair and his eyes scanned the cave like he was looking for somewhere to hide, or to give Tony his space.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“You saved me,” Tony said aloud, more for himself than Bruce.  “You saved me.  It was a nightmare.”

That assuaged Bruce enough that he didn’t look like he wanted to bolt.  He paced back and forth a few times before settling a little farther away from Tony.  There was another growl in the night, multilayered and echoing in the dark. 

“Pterodactyl?” Tony asked.

“No.  Maybe velociraptor.”

“Shut up.”

“You don’t believe me.  We had to double-prep this mission.  One through the ice.  One through the jungle.  The ice was hard on Steve.”

Tony’s heart froze right along with his.  “Did anyone get hurt?”

Bruce smiled.  “No, not at all.  But look at me telling you all this when I’m telling you to sleep.  Let me tell you things that won’t give you nightmares.  I wouldn’t let anyone come in here with me.  And Cap backed me up.  He listened to exactly what I had to say and he trusted me to come get you and keep you safe.”

“Against the velociraptors.”

“Yes!” Bruce beamed.  “You’ll see.”

Bruce came close to give him more water and another shot of the painkillers, then retreated again in the darkness of the cave.  Tony’s eyes felt heavy and the pain ebbed far enough away that he could ignore it for now.  He faded in and out throughout the night, shaking with cold at times and tossing with fever at others.  But Bruce was there with sips of water and lavender scented cloths when he’d allow it.

Alarmingly vivid dreams came with the fever spikes.  He didn’t remember much except for a lot of blood and silent screams and a jungle that roared back.   Sometimes it was the Hulk, hunched over the fresh kill of a leopard or strange, formless reptile, tearing chunks of meat to swallow whole.  Sometimes it was the Abomination ripping helpless Bruce limb from limb and sometimes it was him.

Every time, he woke with panic in his eyes and a scream on his lips.  Bruce whispered to him in the dark and made him swallow water and pills, later, when the water stayed down. 

And then, slowly, the birds woke and began to sing.  They were farther up in the canopy where they could feel the warmth of the dawn filtering through their feathers to the undergrowth below.  Down in the little cave, it was still dark and damp after the night’s rain, though they had managed to stay warm and dry enough.  But the bright sound of the birds was a welcome herald of the dawn.

“Well,” Bruce said as he sat up and yawned.  “We didn’t get eaten.”

Tony swallowed.  Maybe not, but he came pretty damn close a few times in his dreams.

They didn’t have much other than water and painkillers, and Tony felt weak with hunger and blood loss and fever.  Bruce crawled cautiously over to him to take his vitals, and though he tried to keep his face neutral, Tony knew he was in bad shape.

“You’re burning up,” Bruce murmured, trying to keep his voice light, “but we’ll be in the nice, cool quinjet soon.”

Tony could barely mumble an answer through parched lips.  Bruce wet a corner of cloth to let Tony suck at the moisture, and that helped a little. 

“You’re ok,” Bruce soothed as he dragged the damp cloth across Tony’s cheeks and forehead.  “You’re going to be okay.”

That’s all Tony remembered from the morning.  Just Bruce’s steamy breath when he leaned close to look at his eyes or listen to his breathing.  Cool hands on hot skin, and distant screams in the jungle.

And, then, in the haze, there were bright colors and deep voices, and he was being lifted.  And gravity was _not_ his friend because the change made his head spin again and he thought he was going to be sick.

“Wait, Steve, he’s waking up,” Bruce’s voice said.  The litter was lowered down and Bruce was at his side when he opened his eyes.

“Hey Sleeping Beauty,” Bruce said.  “Gonna throw up?”

“How’d you know?” Tony managed before he retched over the side of the litter.

Bruce rubbed his back and helped him ease back down. “It’s a common theme right now,” he said, but he was smiling as if he _liked_ being puked on.

When Tony turned his head the other way, it was Steve on the other end of the litter.

“Cap!” Tony called and Steve gave him an exasperated but fond look. 

“Tony, we were really worried for you,” Steve said as he took up his end of the litter near Tony’s feet.  He was being extra careful of his injured leg.

Bruce took up the end near his head, and Tony was glad because he could look into his face and remind himself that no, it wasn’t the Hulk carrying him deeper into the forest.

Then Tony’s vision greyed out and he was aware of nothing until they were in the branches of the biggest Kapok tree Tony had ever seen.  The trunk split and twisted far up into the thick canopy, so tall that Tony couldn’t see the top through his spotty vision.

“Be still, Tony,” Bruce warned.  He was wearing clothes, now, and a harness which was clipped in to the basket that Tony was lying in.  Steve was clipped into to the other side and a thick cable raised them through the tree canopy.

Tony tried to stay awake because they truly were ascending through paradise.  The lush vegetation looked undisturbed by time, and multicolored birds perched near to watch the strange apes’ slow journey through the trees.  Twice. Bruce and Steve unhooked so they could maneuver the litter over the thick branches by hand, but soon Tony could see the broad, strong branch where Natasha was working the winch.  Glancing up, it wasn’t quite halfway up to the bits of sky he could now see above.  The three of them pulled the litter up onto the tree branch, which barely swayed at the extra weight.

“How you doing, Tony?” Nat asked as Bruce fussed with unhooking the rigging while Cap secured a new one.

“We didn’t get eaten,” Tony mumbled because he couldn’t think of anything to say and it was the last thing he could remember Bruce saying.

“Speaking of, we might want to get down for a moment,” Steve warned.

Each of them held onto the litter, and Bruce’s hand held Tony’s as they ducked down.  There was series of screeches in the distance, and then the flap of scaly wings as a flock of Pterodactyls cruised through the open spots in the trees.  They were pretty well-hidden, though Steve and Natasha both had their pistols out.

“Look, Tony,” Bruce said when it was apparent the flock was going to just fly by.  He undid the restraint across Tony’s chest and lifted him up to see better.

Green scales on their backs were dull, but their bright yellow underbellies flashed like gold as they passed through streaks of sunlight.  The draft from their wings lifted Natasha’s hair a little and she smiled as she lowered the guns.

“Pterodactyls?” Tony said in disbelief as Bruce secured him back into the basket.  “Where are the velociraptors.  Show me the velociraptors!”

“Quiet,” Steve’s voice commanded, though it was playful too.

Tony’s sudden burst of energy cost him, and he dozed as the basket started it upward climb again.  Someone had cleared the way free of most of the branches and it was a smooth ride as the light grew and grew towards the top.  Finally, they could hear the quinjet hover above them, and the last thing Tony remembered was the roaring wind of the jets and Clint hanging halfway out of the cargo bay door, guiding the winch cable in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's not the only one suffering the effects of his captivity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The monsters were never  
> Under my bed.  
> Because the monsters  
> were inside my head.
> 
> I fear no monsters,  
> For no monsters I see.  
> Because all this time  
> The monster has been me.”
> 
> \--Nikita Gill

“You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” Tony said.  He tried to shift into a more comfortable position, which was pretty impossible because every position was uncomfortable.  He couldn’t get any leverage with his arms in braces, and his leg was useless.  Bruce would have jumped to help, but Natasha just watched with vague amusement as she leaned on the wall of the private hospital room.

“The doctors said you’ll be fine,” she said.  She sank into the chair by the bed.

“Clint ends up in medical every other mission,” he replied.

She acknowledged the fact with a little incline of her head.  “But you don’t.”

“Yeah, that’s because I usually have Bruce patch me up at home.  Where is he?”

“He’s taking a break.  Clint took him to get something to eat.”

She straightened in a very suspicious way.  Even after years in her company, Tony couldn’t read her very well so he took every deliberate movement as a suspicious gesture on her part.

“What aren’t you telling me, Agent?”

“It’s the exact opposite.  I’m here to debrief you.”

“I don’t think I’m wearing any.  You’re not laughing.  That was funny.  Bruce would laugh.”

“Start from the beginning, Tony,” Natasha prompted.

Tony took a deep breath, now that the fluid in his lungs was clear and the arc reactor didn’t feel so swollen in his chest, and told her all about how he was checking out a couple of Stark Industry hopefuls in Brazil and he hit the beach because, hello, Brazil, but that’s when Blonsky drugged his drink and dragged him off. 

He thought he’d been unconscious for a few hours, but from what he had already gathered from bits of conversation spoken around him, it had been a lot longer than that.

“You don’t remember travelling to Antarctica?  The ocean, ice, snow, cold, anything?”

He didn’t.  He remembered the jungle cave and the little clearing.  And he remembered the savage look in Hulk’s eyes as he ended Blonsky once and for all.

“There was a lot of blood,” Tony said when Natasha prompted him for details.  He couldn’t really say anything more than that.

Clint came into the room.  Tony waited for Bruce to follow, but he didn’t.

“Where’s Bruce?” Natasha asked, though she was looking at Tony when she did.

“Sleeping. He was dead on his feet.”

Clint perched on the armrest of Natasha’s chair. 

“Did he eat?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah, he ate,” Clint replied with a tired edge to his voice that told Tony that it had been an ongoing fight.  “He’s fine.  Just tired.”  He turned to Tony.  “You should have seen him, Tony.  This wasn’t just a trap—it was an open challenge.  Blonsky choose a place where _no one_ but Hulk could reach you.  And Bruce knew and oh, man, did that piss him off.  He’s been spending way too much time with this one,” he said as he pointed to Natasha, “because he’s got that cool, collected I’m-gonna-hunt-you-and-kill-you look down perfectly.”

Natasha smiled a little, but she said, “He didn’t get it from me.”

Clint shrugged.  “He packed a bag and told us to come get you two when he activated the tracker.”

“He said he fought a dinosaur,” Tony said.

Natasha’s smile grew.  “No, he _killed_ several dinosaurs.  They attacked first, I’m sure.”

“Our team captain is a thawed-out soldier and his BFF is an interdimensional alien prince.  I flew through a fucking wormhole with a nuclear weapon.  I don’t know why I’m shocked about Jurassic Park in Antarctica,” Tony said.  He rubbed his eyes with the edge of the wrist brace.  He was starting to get a headache.

“So Bruce is a hero.  Yay! Why isn’t he here?” Tony asked again.  He thought that maybe they had given him an answer already, but he was too foggy to remember.

“Sleeping,” Natasha answered.  “He’s exhausted.  He stayed with you the whole time, he didn’t sleep while you were in surgery, and he was by your side from the moment you were out.  We couldn’t get him to leave for anything until your fever broke and he knew you were going to be ok.”

Tony didn’t ask again, but he was still confused.   Bruce had been with him the entire time, and he knew he slept in the recliner because Tony had spent plenty of time watching him sleep when he should’ve been sleeping as well.  He reluctantly admitted that Bruce probably wanted the comfort of a real bed.  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was another reason as well.

****

Natasha finished her debriefing quickly, which was great because Tony was tired.  Bruce still didn’t return, so both of his teammates offered to stay the night, but he refused. 

“The constant team meeting is just _lovely_ , but really, I need to sleep and that’s boring to watch.  And creepy,” he argued.

Clint and Natasha gave each other one of those all-knowing super-spy looks that Tony despised because it was like they were telepathic or something.

They left eventually after informing him that someone was going to be back in a few hours to stay with him, though they’d give him his privacy for now.   He was glad.  He wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to sleep.  And, hopefully, Bruce would be awake by the time he woke up, too.

****

Tony was running.  It was dark, and he was running but he wasn’t ever going to get there in time.  He didn’t even know where he was going, but he knew he wasn’t fast enough.

The more energy he put into pumping his legs, trying to go faster, he felt himself slow.  He was running through Jello, something soft that gave under his weight and sucked him down.  It was like he couldn’t move his legs at all.

He looked down to see himself sunk knee-deep in the viscera of some large beast’s chest cavity.  Now that he realized where he was, other details came into view.  Rib bones curved high overhead, with torn scaly skin hanging in flaps from the ragged edges of the animal’s chest wound.

Panic flared as Tony came to the conclusion that he was inside an animal, and he tried to desperately to remember how he had gotten there.  Had he fallen inside?  Did this thing eat him and he managed to survive it?

And then he was in the armor, flying down the gullet of a monstrous space whale.  He didn’t know what to do, but the armor worked for him, blowing the whale open from the inside out so he could tumble into a heap on the street.

Tony shook his head as he tried to get up on his hands and knees.  He was uncoordinated and slow, but he felt just fine.  He laughed.

“Ok, this is a dream because that should have hurt.  That _did_ hurt the first time.  A lot!”

And by the time he got to his feet, he wasn’t wearing the armor anymore.  He was back in a cave, and a sob rose in his chest because his brain couldn’t figure out which cave it was for a few seconds, though one possibility was hardly better than the other.  But he blinked a few times, and decided that this was the jungle because he could see sunlight spilling in through the entrance and the other cave had a steel door.

He still knew it was a dream because his leg wasn’t broken, so he hurried out towards the entrance before the cave had a chance to morph on him again.   He ran through the wide entrance into the light. 

But his heart stopped as he escaped the cave because The Hulk was waiting for him outside.  A giant green hand snatched him from the ground and held him inches from that cavernous mouth as Hulk bellowed into his face.  Tony shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his ears, but his ears were still ringing after. 

The hand around his middle squeezed and Tony opened his eyes in shock.  Hulk’s eyes were red-rimmed with rage and the tendons around his neck strained with the force of keeping his strength in check.  And he was looking straight into Tony’s eyes, his intentions clear.

“NO!” Tony screamed.  He screamed louder as Hulk took his right leg in his other hand and began to pull.  “Hulk!  Bruce, no!  Please, don’t Bruce, Bruce, no!” but it turned into just one long, pleading scream.

“Tony! Wake up, Tony Stark, you’re dreaming, wake up!”

Tony was still screaming, even though he knew it was a dream and that he was awake.  He tried to back away from the hands on him, but there wasn’t very far to go.  He moved too roughly and bumped his leg against the bedrail, which wrenched a different cry of pain from him.

“Hey,” a voice to his side said.  “It’s Clint.  Open your eyes, Tony.”

He didn’t realize they were closed.  He just thought it was dark.  He opened one, then the other, to see Clint and Natasha by one side of the bed, Steve on the other.

And Bruce was back all the way up against the door to the hallway, one hand on it and shaking so badly the handle rattled.  As soon as Tony made eye-contact with him, he bolted out of the room without a word.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Bruce can't stay away from each other forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Nietzsche

Tony, hand wrapped around a drink he wasn’t supposed to have yet, watched the dismal weather from the comfort of his workshop window.  Lately, he’d been staying in his workshop for most of the day because the smooth, level floor was easy to navigate in a wheelchair, unlike the penthouse with the stairs and balcony and sunken living room.  There was a refrigerator stocked with everything he could need, and Pepper had even sent over a new centrifugal juicer for when he didn’t feel like eating. 

And it was a lot easier to ask DUM-E and U for help with reaching things, fetching him drinks and pushing him around when he got too tired. 

He was too tired, now.  He should go upstairs and lie down, or just lie down on the couch here.  JARVIS would tell him when it’s dinner, or if he didn’t want to leave the room, someone would bring food down and watch him pick at it.  Steve, Clint and Natasha were taking turns, since Bruce wasn’t around.

Bruce had left the city the morning after Tony’s nightmare in the hospital.  He had left a message with JARVIS that he was called away on business and would be back when he could.

“Business?” Tony had railed at JARVIS.  “What kind of business could Bruce possible have?”

Steve, overhearing, raised an eyebrow.  “ _Personal_ business, maybe?”

Tony scoffed.  “We are his personal business.”

Steve’s smile was a little knowing and a little sad.

The nightmare that scared Bruce off hadn’t—apparently—been the first one.  Natasha told Tony that he had screamed out about the Hulk, or Bruce, or both through his fever, with Bruce right there to listen to it all.

“He’s delirious,” Bruce had whispered to her as he adjusted the icepacks around Tony so his skin wouldn’t burn from the cold.  “He’s been through a lot.”

“So have you, Bruce,” she told him.  But he just shook his head in return and wouldn’t talk about it.

But the nightmares took a toll on him, and he fled.  Tony knew why.  There were only so many times he could handle being called a monster before he believed it.

Tony’s gaze wandered from the skyline to the drink in his hand.  The ice melted and the whiskey was watered down into a sweet mess.  He was tired.  And bored.  And lonely.

He must have fallen asleep slumped over in the wheelchair because the feeling of someone taking the glass out of his hand jolted him awake.  It was Steve.

“Sorry,” Steve said as he firmly took it away.  “I thought you were going to drop it.”  He paused as the scent of the glass’s contents wafted over to him.  “Are you drinking on painkillers?” he said with a frown.

“It’s full and mostly water at this point,” Tony said.  The nap hadn’t done anything for the exhaustion that dogged him and he was snappy and irritable.

Steve put it aside without another comment, then moved on to his usual routine of stocking Tony’s fridge and setting aside clean towels and clothes for whenever he wanted to attempt a bath.

“Ready to come downstairs and hang out with the team?” Steve asked when he was done.

“No.”

“Want us to come up here with you?”

“Hell no.”

Steve shrugged.  “Do you want to call Bruce and talk to him?”

Tony’s head snapped up.  There was a definite smile on Steve’s face, though he was trying very hard to look neutral.

“Where is he?”

“At Sam’s place, in Washington.”

“What?  Since when?”

“He went straight there from here, apparently.”  Steve didn’t sound shocked, but there was relief on his face.  “Bruce called from there a few minutes ago.  He just asked Sam to keep it quiet until he decided what to do.”

“What to do?  What is there to do?”

“I don’t know, Tony.  Call him.  He said it was ok.  You know how he is after missions.  He has a hair-trigger fight or flight response, and well, he lost this time.  Don’t take it personal.”

Tony bristled.  “It’s _not_ personal.  I’m not scared of the Hulk—or Bruce—at all.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“No one would blame you if you were, least of all Bruce.  I mean, aren’t you a little scared of _me_.”

“Fuck off, Spangles.”

Steve, the jerk, laughed.  “You’re scared of Natasha, though,” he said.

“That’s because she’s scary.”

“Clint?”

“Only because I’ve seen him do the stupidest shit and not die.  The man has a superpower he’s not telling us about.”

“No, he doesn’t.  How about Thor?”

“Demi-god who shoots lightning through a magic hammer?  That’s not even fair anymore.”

“So why’s it so important that Bruce thinks you’re not scared of him?”

Tony blinked.  Steve didn’t understand.  “I don’t wake up at night screaming your name for all the wrong reasons.”

Steve’s lips pursed a bit.  “I didn’t know you were still having nightmares.”

“I’m not.”  He was.

“Okay,” Steve said.  “Well, call Bruce, then take a bath and come join us, ok?”

His voice was edging on pleading, which earned a derisive snort from Tony.  “Yeah sure, Cap.”

But Steve nodded and left.

****

The phone rang once, twice before Sam picked up.

“Hey Tony,” he said as his face appeared on screen.

“Hi Sam.  Sorry to call your cell and not your house, but…”

But he wanted to _see_ that Bruce was okay, not just hear his voice.  Bruce was too good at lying over the phone.

Sam grinned.  “No problem.  We’re not at the house anyway, so it’s good you called my phone.  Just lemme find him.”

He could see Sam moving down a long hallway with several doors and fluorescent overheard lights.  He turned into an office and called for Bruce.

“Here he is.”

Tony’s stomach twisted a little as he watched the room spin as the phone was passed from one hand to the next.  And then Bruce’s face was there in front of him, with his glasses falling down his nose and a little half-smile on his lips.

“Hi Tony,” he said.  “How are you feeling?  You look really good.”

Tony scratched a hand through his freshly-trimmed goatee.  He had bathed and changed clothes and shaved to at least give the appearance that he had his shit together.  So his grin was genuine that it worked.

“Thanks.  I’m fine.  Feeling a lot better.  What about you?”

“Fine.  Keeping busy.  Sam gave me a job at the VA.  That’s where we are right now.”

“The VA?  I thought you weren’t that kind of doctor?”

The spot right behind the arc reactor began to ache.  Bruce had a job, in a different city, living with a different friend.  It hurt a lot less than the thought that Bruce was on the street somewhere, scraping to get by, or running from the feds or something.  But it still hurt.

But Bruce smiled a little more and ducked his head.  “No, no.  I’m _not_ a therapist.  I’m just updating their wireless network.”  He looked back up into the camera.  “I owe you an apology for running out on you like that.  I shouldn’t have left so suddenly…”

Tony shrugged.  “It’s a free country.”  Bruce’s face twisted a little at that comment, so he quickly added, “Or at least Steve still thinks it is.”

Bruce smiled, forced this time, and looked down again.  “Are you having nightmares about the jungle?” he asked quietly.

Tony wished he hadn’t asked.  He didn’t know which would cause more damage—the truth or a lie.

“I am,” he said eventually.  “But not like before,” he reassured.  “Not as bad.”

“Me too,” Bruce said.  “But for me, they’re not nightmares.  I keep getting flashbacks from the Other Guy when he was looking for you and he’s…happy.  More than that.  He’s exhilarated in a way I’ve never felt before, as him or as me.  He _liked_ it in the Savage Land because he’s…”

“Primal,” Tony supplied before Bruce could say something worse.

“Ok, let’s go with primal.  But, after we got back to the city, I kept wondering if maybe I should go back and just let Hulk be Hulk.”

Tony tried very hard to keep the emotion off his face and he regretted the video call after all.  “So what?  You’re just going to answer the call of the wild and disappear?”

Bruce didn’t answer.  He stared for a few seconds and shrugged.

“We need you, Bruce.” 

“I know,” he replied.  “Hey, I should get back to work and give Sam his phone back.  Are you going to be okay?”

Tony didn’t want to lay any more guilt at his feet, but he also had the distinct impression that this was a good-bye.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I’m going to go upstairs to hang out with the other three and have dinner.”

Bruce sighed, visibly releasing tension.  “Good.  Have a good evening, Tony.”

“You too,” he said.

Bruce nodded and Tony could see his eyes looking for the button to end the call on the unfamiliar phone.

“Wait!” Tony said before he could stop himself.

“What?”

“Don’t leave.  Don’t go into the jungle.”

“It was just a thought, Tony,” he said.  And then he smiled.  “I know I can’t.  Don’t worry, though.  I won’t do anything that drastic.  Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay,” Tony replied.  And then Bruce ended the call.

****

Despite Steve’s invitation to join the group, they all looked suspicious and wary when he actually _did._ Three heads turned to watch him wheel out of the elevator.  DUM-E followed, slower because his tracks had better traction on the marble floor and Tony had reset his sensors because the bot kept bumping into him. They watched him until he pulled up alongside the couch.

“Are you hungry?” Clint said at the same time as Steve asked “Want up on the couch?” but Tony shook his head to both questions.

“I need someone to drive me to Washington,” he announced. 

Three pairs of eyes blinked at him.  Tony crossed his arms and jut out his jaw a bit to show he was serious.

“No,” Natasha said. 

“Nope,” Clint said.

“Later,” Steve said.

“Tomorrow,” Tony demanded.

Steve sighed.  “Bruce is taking care of himself right now so he can come back and be the person you want him to be.”

“I want him to be himself,” Tony said.

“You want him to be a hero, Tony.  And that puts a lot of pressure on him,” Steve replied.  “Leave him alone for a while.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be alone.”

“Which is why he went to Sam’s house and not Mongolia,” Natasha said.

Clint rose and came over to Tony and locked the wheelchair’s brakes.  He put out his hand, and Tony blinked at it for a second before he took it and let Clint pull him upright and help him transfer to the couch.  He could have done it himself, he was sure, but his arms were still healing even if he had ripped the splints off days ago.  Clint lifted his legs onto the cushions and helped him stretch out.

“You wouldn’t be comfortable in a car for four hours,” he said.

“We’ll take the jet,” Tony said, but he yawned and ruined his case.

“Real subtle.  Sam’s street isn’t wide enough.” 

“At least wait until you don’t look like a human punching bag,” Natasha said.  “That can’t be good for Bruce.”

They stopped talking about Bruce after that.  Tony didn’t know whether to feel annoyed that they didn’t seem to care or relieved that they all believed he would return in his own time.  In the end, he went with a little bit of both feelings.

****

Tony leaned his temple against the cool window and closed his eyes to focus on the vibrations of the road under the Land Rover’s tires.  It felt almost like being in the suit, and it was noisy enough to distract him from the murmur of conversation coming from Steve and Natasha in the front seat. 

He shifted on the leather seat and sat up more against the window to take the pressure off his sore hips.  He had lost muscle mass, and some extra padding between his bones and the seats would be appreciated.  The freeway passed by the window in one long streak of grey and Tony let it hypnotize him to sleep.

“We’re almost there,” Natasha said some time later.

Steve was exiting the freeway, so Tony sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

“How do I look?” he asked and immediately winced at the rough sound of his voice.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Natasha replied.

Tony huffed and fished a pair of red-tinted sunglasses out of his pocket.  That would take care of his bloodshot eyes.  He was more tired than he thought he would be, but he hoped he would wake up once he was out of the car.

Steve drove through town to the community center where Sam held group counseling sessions on the weekends.  He parked outside of the front courtyard and fetched Tony’s wheelchair from the back while Natasha opened the door for him.  His eyes burned in the sunlight, too used to the tinted windows, but he blinked it back and gave the wheelchair a long, hard look before glowering up at Steve.  The sunlight caught the gold in his short hair like a halo, but Tony knew better.

“Ok, ok,” Steve said.  He left the chair on the sidewalk and took a pair of crutches from the back.  “I thought you’d be tired from the car ride.”

Tony’s glower softened.  Steve, Natasha, and Clint had all taken good care of him while he was grumpy and sore.  He was lonely when they weren’t around and irritable when they were.  With a nod of thanks, Tony took the crutches and levered himself up out of the car.

To Steve’s credit, he didn’t warn Tony to be careful or bait him in any way.  He just held out a hand until he was sure Tony was steady and backed off. 

“I’ll tell Sam we’re here,” he said before disappearing inside.

Tony followed Natasha into the building.  They left the chair on the street.

“Are you happy now?” She asked as she fell into pace beside him.

As she got in reply was a grunt because moving around on crutches was not easy, especially when he had barely had the splints off his forearms for a few days.  He had to concentrate on shifting his weight just right so that he didn’t put too much strain on his sore shoulders, either, so he silently followed Natasha down a long corridor, his eyes on the fading brown linoleum.  He barely registered Natasha opening another door before a cool breeze made him look up again.

They were outside, in a garden behind the community center.  It was protected by a concrete wall, which muffled the sounds of the neighborhood beyond.  And, sitting in the center of a large crater in the earth was Bruce Banner.

This time, he had clothes on, a blue denim shirt rolled to the elbows and a pair of dark jeans, caked with dirt.  There was dirt streaking his face and hair, too, as if he had scrubbed his hands across his forehead. He was too busy thrusting the shovel into the earth, the muscles along his back taught under the sweat-dark shirt, and lifting piles of earth into a waiting wheelbarrow to notice their arrival.

“Bruce,” Natasha called.

He didn’t answer.  Tony’s armpits were getting sore.

Natasha went to crouch at the edge of the hole.  She reached into the curly mass of Bruce’s hair and pulled out an earbud.  He startled, but the surprised expression turned into a wide, genuine smile when he saw who had interrupted his music. 

“Hey! Nat!”  He reached up to hug her, which almost pulled her down into the hole.  Her eyes narrowed for a second before she held tighter and stood, lifting him up and out to set him on his feet.

“Haha!  Thanks! Tony!” he said as soon as his footing was firm.  And Tony was very grateful he had eschewed the wheelchair for now because he could look Bruce in the eyes at his level.  “How are you, Tony?”

Wishing I had taken more painkillers, thanks for asking, and my arms are going to fall off, and there are bruises from these damn crutches but that damn chair is a pain in the ass and everything hurts but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as being away from you.

“I’m good.”

“You look good,” Bruce said cautiously.  “I just put this bench in over here.  Do you want to look?”

Thankfully, the little wooden split-log bench was only a few steps away, hidden in the deep shade of a young buckeye tree.  The bench looked rough-hewn, but it was actually cut pretty well, and the smooth polished grain of the wood felt good under Tony’s hand.  He gratefully lowered himself down, right leg straight out, and it was just the right height for that, too.

“Digging to China?” Tony joked when he could get his breath back.

Bruce laughed, easily, and it took some of the pressure off Tony’s chest.  “Making a pond.  For fish.”

“Won’t it freeze in the winter?”

“Yeah, but if it’s deep enough, the fish will go to the bottom and hibernate.  I just have to make sure there’s a pipe for oxygen and they’ll be ok.  They’re made to adapt.”

Tony looked around the garden as Bruce spoke.  The garden’s privacy walls were ugly grey concrete, but most of the walls were covered in trellises, supporting ferns and ivy and morning glories.  There was a towering apple tree and a pear tree providing more shade over a lush green carpet of grass that looked like it needed a mowing.  The ground was divided up with chalk and string into plots with paths between them, and Tony noted that the irrigation piping had already been laid.  He followed the pattern up to the half-dug pond.  Some of the plots already had labels: blueberries, carrots, squash.  Some were empty and barren still.

“Did you do all this?” Tony asked in amazement.  “I mean, this is going to be a self-cleaning pond that irrigates the garden, right?”

“Yeah!” Bruce said.  He wiped his brown hand across his face, which made neither of them cleaner. “But I didn’t do it alone.  You just came on Saturday when no one’s here.”

“You’re here.”

Bruce smiled a little.  “I’m here, but I just thought I’d get some work done in the garden while Sam was here, too.  Sam never takes a day off, Tony.  He goes from one job to the next job to another volunteer job.”  Bruce shook his head.

“Do you feel you’re in the way?  I’m not trying to push you to come home, but you could have your own place.”  He swallowed.  “Here, even.”

“Sam doesn’t mind,” Bruce said.  “We had that conversation once.”

“What happened?”

“He keeps stocking the freezer with butter pecan ice cream.”

Tony laughed at that louder than he should have.  Bruce’s penchant for eating ice cream for breakfast was not exactly a well-guarded secret. 

Bruce was standing in the shade, but digging out ponds was hard work, so Tony shifted over a bit and patted the seat next to him.  He lowered himself down with a slight groan at the stretch in his back.  The bench was wide enough for two, but he was still close enough to feel the heat rising from his clothes and his tan skin.  The rich scent of damp clay earth rolled off Bruce’s skin, and the sweet chlorophyll smell of cut grass was embedded in his curls.  Tony breathed deep, sucking the essence of wild, growing things as if it were an aura around Bruce.

Later, while thinking on the car ride home, Tony would blame animalistic instinct on his mistake to slowly lean his weight against Bruce.  Still later, he would blame it on simple loneliness.  Whatever the cause, Bruce pulled sharply away and regarded Tony with wide, wary eyes.

“Why are you here, Bruce?” Tony asked softly.

“I…I got scared and I needed to get away from you, to make you safe.”

Tony tried very hard to keep his face blank.

“So I took what I could and I got on the first train out of the city.  Lucky me, the train ended up here, and well, I shouldn’t have gone to Sam’s house.”

“But divine providence led you to my doorway, and to my freezer, and to my ice cream,” a deep, smooth voice said from behind them.

Tony swiveled to see Natasha, Steve and Sam coming outside. 

Sam leapt onto a pile of bricks to survey the little garden hideaway.  “This was a big plot of yellow grass behind three grey walls and some plastic chairs before he got here. People used to throw their cigarette butts out here and say they were trying to grow tobacco.”

Sam took out his phone and began passing around “before” pictures of the garden.  He wasn’t lying.  It was pile of dirt with a sprinkling of shabby grass.  Tony looked around again.  Now, it was on its way to becoming a lush little paradise.

“You did this yourself?”

“No, I couldn’t do all this.  It’s for the occupational therapy groups.  I’m just helping out.  Digging the pond out is not exactly the fun part.”

Sam clapped him on the back.  “It’s was Bruce’s idea to make a garden to begin with, so we got some ex-SeaBees to help with the design, and they’re going to lay the liner down for the pool and help put the irrigation piping in.” 

“I thought you were upgrading the VA’s network,” Tony said to Bruce.

Bruce shrugged.  “That didn’t take very long.”

Sam glanced down at his watch.  “I have another group session in a few minutes.  If any of you came it would make me look like a rock star.  Maybe not Bruce.  They think he’s the gardener.”

Steve went with Sam because he genuinely enjoyed listening to the stories of his fellow veterans, even if he never could make himself say anything other than “that’s awful” and “I’m sorry for your loss.”  Natasha went, too, but partially because Tony was making murder eyes at her.

So they were gone again, for at least an hour, with Bruce fidgeting with the shovel and Tony staring at the swirls in the wood of the bench. 

“You look happy here,” Tony said once they were alone together.

Bruce laughed.  “I’m really not.”  He looked up at the young leaves above them.  “Maybe I could be.”

“Do you think you’re going to come back to New York?”

Bruce’s eyes closed and his smile twisted into a grimace.  “I don’t know if I could do that again,” he said softly.  “I don’t think I can turn into the Other Guy anymore.  When we were in the jungle, so far away from anywhere anyone knew existed, we felt so free.  Like we could finally be ourselves.”  Bruce sighed and opened his eyes.  “I didn’t even know that feeling could exist.  That it could feel _good_ to be the Hulk.”

Tony wanted to hit him with his crutch.  “So, yay!  Win one for the team!  You found a mythical, magical place that seems to be custom made just for you, and it’s on _planet earth!_ You don’t even have to use wormholes or some flimsy rainbow bridge to get there.”

“But Tony, what if I don’t want to come back?”

“To New York?”

“To New York, Washington, Malibu, not anywhere.  What if I just want to let go and let Hulk be happy.”

“With the dinosaurs.”

“I’m sure those help.”

“They’re going to go extinct again if you let the Hulk loose on them.  You know that right?”

Bruce sighed and rubbed a dirty hand through hair so greasy it didn’t really matter.  But he smiled, and bits of fine dirt settled into the lines on his face so that it looked more exaggerated that it was.  And his tan cheeks looked healthier than they had during weeks in the lab.

“I guess I’m trying to make a little more civilized of a jungle,” he said as he looked around the half-finished garden.

“Or maybe put the ‘jungle’ back into the concrete?” Tony offered.  Bruce seemed to like that idea because the smile lines deepened. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes.  After a while, Bruce got up and pushed the wheelbarrow of dirt he’d been loading to a bigger pile near one of the walls.  Raised beds for root vegetables, he explained.

“So,” Tony asked when Bruce was finished moving dirt.  “I’m guessing you don’t want a ride home tonight?”

Bruce seemed to consider it, but he looked across the garden.  “Not today.  I want to make sure I finish this job before running away again.” 

That line, Tony thought, sounded a lot more like Sam than Bruce.

But then Bruce’s eyes brightened, though it may have been a trick of the low afternoon sun.  “I’ll be back before your cast comes off.  I’ll go the hospital with you when you have it done.”  And he turned to Tony and looked him right in the eye, asking silently if it was ok.

“It’s a date! And then you’ll have lovely months of PT to look forward to!

Bruce chuckled.  “It’s a date.”

And then Bruce leaned over and hugged him and Tony was immediately surrounded by humid darkness and sweaty denim and the smell of fresh, loamy earth.  Bruce didn’t let go right away, so Tony let himself enjoy the moment, and savored the feeling of those soft, tangled curls in his left fingers.

“I thought you were going to kill me,” Tony heard himself whisper before he could stop the words from coming out.

“I thought I was going to, too.  But I didn’t.  We’re both still here.”

Bruce pushed back, and if his face hadn’t been so dirty he might have gotten away with the tear tracks, but as it were they were the only clean streaks on his face.

“Your eyeliner is running” Bruce said.

“I am NOT wearing eyeliner—well look at that,” Tony said as he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and black smudges came away. 

The rest of the short afternoon they were left alone.  Sam brought out sandwiches and painkillers for Tony, which he only took because Bruce was there and he wanted to show Bruce that he could behave himself.  But other than that, they were left in peace until the sun began to sink below the treetops.

Sam whistled low when he saw the progress that Brue and Tony had made in the garden.  They didn’t have the tools to start with the masonry, but the pool was completely dug out, with the thick liner smoothed into place.  And there were two freshly planted beds of red and yellow flowers next to the bench under the buckeye tree. 

“Ready to go?” Steve asked softly.

“Where?” Tony yawned.  Natasha showed up pushing the wheelchair in front of her, and Tony had never been so grateful to see her in his life. 

“Home or hotel?” Steve asked.

Tony considered asking Bruce to come once more, but he knew better.  “Home,” he said.

Sam hugged him, which gave Tony a chance to whisper his thanks into his ear.  Bruce leaned down to hug him too, since they were both a mess anyway.  Still, Tony buried his nose in his hair and breathed deeply.  Bruce pressed their foreheads together.  “Before your cast comes off,” he promised.

And then he was trundled into the backseat of the SUV, though this time it was Bruce who made sure he was settled comfortably. 

“Thanks, Wilson,” Tony called out as the door was being closed again.

“Anytime.  It seems Wilson’ Home for Healing Heroes is open for business.”

They all smiled, even Natasha as they pulled out of the driveway.  They weren’t even on the freeway before Natasha turned around in her seat to stare at Tony.

“Are you happy now?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“You don’t look happy.”

“You don’t know my happy face.  This is my happy face. Steve, turn around and tell her this is my happy face.”

“I’m driving.”

But Natasha wouldn’t stop staring at him like that, half endearingly and half like a deranged predator.  So he shut his eyes and buried his nose in the front of his collar.   The smell of loamy soil filled him with images of towering trees and vast waterfalls.  The roar of the engine became the persistent purr of a beast on the hunt, lulling Tony into an easy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story!


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